"Lightning" Joe Gatti is a former Canadian boxer at middleweight

Middleweight

Middleweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have begun in the 1840s. In the bare-knuckle era, the first middleweight championship fight was between Tom Chandler and Dooney Harris in 1897...

. He fought out of Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...

.

Personal

Joe is the older brother of former world boxing champion, Arturo Gatti

Arturo Gatti

Arturo "Thunder" Gatti was a Canadian professional boxer. Born in Cassino, Italy, and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Gatti relocated to Jersey City, United States as a teenager...

. Joe relocated to Jersey City, New Jersey in the late 1980s from Canada where he lived and trained with Panama Lewis

Panama Lewis

Carlos "Panama" Lewis is a well-known and highly controversial boxing trainer who achieved his greatest notoriety in the 1980s.-Early career:Lewis was a disciple of trainer Chickie Ferrara...

. Joe was the chief sparring partner of Canadian born champion Matthew Hilton

Matthew Hilton

Matthew Hilton was a Canadian boxer from Montreal, Quebec and one of the three brothers from the fighting family Hilton....

.

Professional career

Although Joe did not live up to the fame and fortune of his younger brother, he held a steadfast career record boasting 30 wins (22 K.O.) and 8 losses between 1987 and 2002.

Gatti turned professional in 1987 and won his first four pro bouts and later compiled a winning streak to set up a bout with Terry Norris

Terry Norris

Terry Wayne Norris is a retired American boxer and a three-time world champion in the light middleweight division. Originally from Lubbock, Texas, he fought out of San Diego.-Early boxing career:...

 for the WBC light middleweight title in 1993. Norris crushed Gatti, winning by TKO in the first round. The loss to Norris was the beginning of the end for the once promising Gatti, and he went on to lose to former champion James McGirt in 1995. Gatti later challenged Sven Ottke

Sven Ottke

Sven Ottke, known as "The Phantom", is a German former professional boxer who was the IBF/WBA super middleweight champion...

for the IBF super middleweight title in 2003, but lost via TKO. This was the final fight of Gatti's career.